Some people have thin hair for genetic reasons, others may have thin hair due to illness or certain types of treatment for illness. Furthermore, even among those with hair of average or better fullness, there is an interest, particularly among women, for large, upswept hairstyles. In all of these various cases, there is a need for a system or method to add height to the hairstyle and provide the appearance of greater fullness to people's hair. The feminine pronoun will be used throughout this document, although it is to be understood that the system of the present invention is equally appropriate for use by men and women.
To some extent, the natural hair on a person's head can be given an appearance of increased fullness by appropriate styling. This approach, variously termed pumping, teasing, back combing, etc., is time-consuming and of limited effectiveness. Also, a teased hairstyle will tend to flatten out over the course of a day, requiring re-styling to maintain the desired appearance.
It is known to use accessories in order to provide a fuller look to a head of hair. For example, the most common such known accessory, a hair switch, consists of a switch of natural or artificial hair which terminates at one end in a loop of elastic material. The loop is used to fix the switch to the natural hair of the wearer. The wearer piles her hair up on the top of the head, in which position the hair is held by hair clips or the like. The loop of the hair switch is then buried in the piled up natural hair, and secured, again with hair clips, to the natural hair, so as to give the piled-up hair look of greater volume. This procedure is time-consuming, requires skill for proper implementation, and is only appropriate for certain types of hairstyles in which the hair is worn "up," such as in a bun. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system for adding height to the hair at the crown of the head, which system is quick and easy to put in and which is compatible with casual naturally draping hairstyles, in which the hair is worn "down."
It is known to use artificial volumizing masses to be inserted beneath the wearer's hair, to give naturally draping hairstyles the appearance of more volume near the crown of the head. For example, the commercially available Poofdini.TM. device made by Hairdini Inventive Products, Inc. consists of a shapeable foam pillow affixed to a hair clip. The wearer flips her natural hair forward, affixes the clip to the hair at the crown of the head, near the hair roots, and flips her natural hair back over the device. Although the Poofdini.TM. device can give the appearance of a great deal of added volume to the wearer's hair, it suffers the disadvantage that in the event that the natural hair is displaced and the device is rendered visible, the obviously artificial nature of the pillow is very apparent, causing embarrassment for the wearer. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system for adding height to the hair at the crown of the head, which system incorporates human or natural-looking artificial hair to prevent the embarrassment which would be associated with the inadvertent exposure of an obviously artificial system.
It is also known to use combs with hair attached to them to augment the wearer's natural hair. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 250,967 to Presser shows a comb with an attached mass of artificial hair, particularly to be used for reinforcing scanty front hair with artificial waves. Volumizing systems such as Presser suffer the drawback that the comb is visible, and the hair introduced by such systems lies on top of the natural hair and is thus completely visible. Again, the visibility of the comb makes such systems compatible only with certain hairstyles, and the visibility of the introduced hair tends to make the system more noticeable when the color match between the introduced hair and the natural hair is not perfect. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system for adding height to the hair at the crown of the head, in which the method of attachment of the system is not visible, and which is designed such that the introduced hair is generally hidden from view beneath the natural hair of the wearer.
Therefore, based on the systems known in the art for volumizing hair, there is a need for a system which is easy to put on, is typically hidden from view beneath the wearer's natural hair, uses either natural or synthetic hair to provide a natural look, which adds height to the hair at the crown of the head, and which is compatible with hair worn down.